A Loving God

[Pat Mustard]

That's a real general statement that doesn't refute the benefit following God.  We all put our faith in things or people that we deem to be worthy of that faith.  Most of us put our faith in doctors, teachers, scientists, etc.  If we discover that these individuals or institutions are unworthy of our faith and trust than we usually abandon them.

Big difference between putting your trust in a doctor and putting your trust in an unevidenced being. First of all we know the doctor exists, we can check his credentials and look up databases kept by the local medical board(s) to ensure that he is keeping his training up to date and that he has no malpractice issues hanging over him. As yhwh is totally unevidenced we can do precisely no checking up on him.

And secondly we don't put our trust in doctors unconditionally in all areas. If I go to my GP with a strange feeling in my heart, I expect him to be able to test me and go either "ok there's nothing wrong with you other than eating more slowly won't cure. Get some rennies" or "yeah that looks a problem. I've seen it before in other patients/I've read it in medical textbooks/I've never experienced this before [delete as apppropriate] better send you to the cardiologist so that she can check you out more thoroughly than I can". I would not expect my GP to be able to fully diagnose a serious heart condition and cure me of it in the one visit. And branching it out further, I wouldn't expect him to be able to give me stock market advice, fix my car and predict who Angelina Jolie's next husband is going to be at the same time. What you expect from god is exactly the kind of thing I do not expect from human experts, full knowledge in all areas and full ability to act on that knowledge.

I would never suggest that we should follow a god that is evil, unloving, etc.

But, objectively speaking, from the description in the bible you do follow an evil and unloving god. You follow a god for whom rape is ok, for whom racist slavery is ok, for whom murder is an acceptable punishment for trivial transgressions, for whom it is ok to go out and slaughter your neighbour and his family for their land and cattle (as long as they are not the same religion as you). By any measure that we can use yhwh would be evil if he were real.

Relying on a higher power doesn't consist of waking up every day and stopping, consulting God and waiting for answer before we act, as if anyone really does that.  At least represent theists realistically, if you're going to form conclusions about us.  I make my daily decisions based on the morality I have formed through my experience with God and his presence in me at all times.

But it does depend on you making up an imaginary being to justify to yourself and others your morality and why you do what you do. I have no need for a voice inside my head to explain to me how and why I should take an action. I own up to my faults and mistakes because it is the right thing to do.

The rest of your post descends in to pointless sophistry, it is pointless dealing with them other than to say they are useless.